


The Avengers vs. Pokémon Go

by WriteThroughTheNight



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crack, Everyone is way too competitive for their own good, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Pokemon GO - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 17:30:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7517014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteThroughTheNight/pseuds/WriteThroughTheNight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The app that took over the world takes over the Avengers. </p>
<p>Chaos ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Avengers vs. Pokémon Go

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I blame bioluminescent for this, and also Niantic. The game is just way too addictive.
> 
> This is just a little bit of fun while I work on a longer piece! It takes place in a strange universe where everything is okay and everyone is happy, Post whatever-you-want-it-to-be-post. I have no beta, so any mistakes are my own.
> 
> Thanks for reading and enjoy!

It all starts on a hot day in July. 

To be precise, it starts long before that, with the first beta testers, and before that the programmers, and then even further back with the founding of the company Niantic- but for the purpose of this story, it starts on a hot day in July when Tony Stark picks up the phone.

Technically, JARVIS picks up the phone for him, but it counts. Pepper is talking about some company nonsense that Tony really isn't paying attention to, Board of Directors blah blah blah, stocks blah blah blah, R&D blah blah blah. Tony is much more interested in figuring out how to make his coffee pot fly. He tells Pepper as much, who sighs and tells him he's being ridiculous, but seriously, flying coffee is the best idea he's had since JARVIS. 

"We're almost done, then you can go play with your coffee pot. I just wanted to let you know we're investing in a company called Niantic. They're releasing an app tomorrow and projections look like the stocks for the company will soar." Pepper informs him, just the early signs of annoyance in her tone. That's okay, because she's piqued Tony's interest.

"An app? I bet I could do better, what's it called?" As Tony waits for a reply, he's readying his search engine to dig up some dirt.

"It's called Pokémon Go, some type of augmented reality game based on these animated animal... things."

Tony claps his hands in recognition. "Pokémon! That's the one with the trading cards and that weird little yellow rat, right?"

"Pikachu." Pepper tells him.

"Gesundheit."

"Goodbye, Tony. Please try not to ruin the reputation of the company we just heavily invested in."

And that's how it starts.

 

Quite frankly, Tony thinks the app is great. He downloaded it early of course, explored it a bit, and he gets why Pepper thinks it's going to be a hit. It's... Strangely engrossing, trying to catch the little creatures and level them up. The Tower is something called a gym, and there's another thing called a pokéstop right outside, and Tony spends the rest of the day/night figuring out how to get good at the game and hooking it up to JARVIS who can mimic a perfect throw every time. By the time the game releases, Tony is definitely enjoying himself and ready to bully Bruce into playing. At level five they can join a team, and Tony bets he and Bruce can take any gym they come across.

Then the game releases and the world goes insane.

 

Clint is hanging out in the common room when Tony stumbles in, cursing. He's glaring at his phone and swiping at it furiously saying something about magma and poking people. Whatever, the television is playing an episode of Dog Cops that Clint hasn't seen yet so someone else can deal with Tony's shit. Of course, Tony doesn't care about Clint's wonderfully logical argument and storms right over to Clint, blocking the television.

"Legolas! You've got perfect aim, capture this goddamn thing for me, would you?" And Tony shoves his phone at Clint.

It's a Stark phone, thin and light, and the screen shows a weird yellow and red thing labeled Magmar CP 418 dancing on the coffee table. Clint looks up from the phone and at the coffee table just to make sure and yep, the weird thing is just on the phone. There's a red and white ball spinning at the bottom of the screen. So weird.

"What's this, Iron Ass?" Clint asks idly. "Did you and Banner grow weird animated animals in your lab only visible through a camera lens? Because let me tell you, that'll be hell to clean up."

Tony scowls at him. "What? No. Why the fuck would we do that? _How_ would we do that?"

Clint shrugs. "No idea. After the pollen incident, I figure just about anything is possible with you two."

Tony shudders. "Jesus, I thought it was like a team rule that we never mention that ever again. Anyway, we're getting off track. Catch the damn thing would you? Just swipe to throw that little ball at it."

Rolling his eyes, Clint resigns himself to the craziness and swipes the damn screen. Ha! Take that, bullseye on his first try, right through the little red circle, and the screen flashes 'Excellent!' before the ball shakes a few times and says 'Gotcha!'. He hands the phone back to Tony, who's sputtering.

"What- I don't- JARVIS did the same thing twenty times!" 

Clint rolls his eyes again. "What's the name of that game? I'm assuming it's a game."

"Pokémon Go, it was just released today. Their servers are getting overloaded, but I've got JARVIS fixing that."

Clint makes a humming sound in his throat. "Huh. Sounds cool." He turns his attention back to the television until Tony wanders out again. As soon as Clint hears the elevator doors close, he digs out his Stark phone and searches for the game. Anything requiring accuracy is for him.

 

Tony gets Bruce to play it too, cornering him in his lab and pestering him until he gives in. Bruce enjoys it a lot, especially the early levels. He doesn't play for very long, just until he spends 50 pokéballs trying to catch a 330 CP Eevee. The phone gets destroyed in the Hulk's anger, along with Bruce's entire lab.

It's a unanimous decision that Bruce not play the game after that.

 

Natasha comes home from a mission in Europe to all out war in the Tower. Clint pulls her into the vents before she manages to get even fifteen feet into the lobby and slaps a hand over her mouth. _Stealth infiltration_ , he mouths. Natasha nods and plays along.

He leads her through the vents until they're above Tony's workshop, where the man himself is fabricating what looks like words onto the armor. Natasha squints. Why is Tony putting the word Valor on his suits?

Clint presses a finger to his lips and removes what looks like a small blue bomb from his pocket. He soundlessly lifts the vent cover and counts to three.

Clint throws the bomb and blue glitter explodes everywhere. Natasha blinks, a bit thrown, as Clint slams the vent down and starts to drag her away. 

"BARTON!" Tony roars from behind them, and they're flying through the vents now, but not so fast as to prevent Clint from yelling back, "Team Mystic, asshole!"

They finally drop down into Clint's room, and her partner is laughing, a streak of blue across one cheekbone.

"Explain." Natasha demands. So Clint does, and from then on, at least four times a week the two of them go out at night, practicing their parkour, stopping petty crime, and taking over every gym in the city for Team Mystic.

(They even manage to hold the tower for a good six hours while Tony gets more and more outraged until they lock him in the Hulk Room for a bit of a cool down).

 

Thor loves the game, but to absolutely no one's surprise, he's destroyed over ten phones and he's had it two days. Seven of them, Thor shorted out, and the other three he cracked the screen while battling. Somehow, Thor got Pikachu as a starter pokémon even though none of the others informed him about the cheat. Everyone accepts it pretty quickly and does their best not to insult Team Instinct while he's in the room unless they are actively trying to be struck by lightning.

 

The first time someone mentions the game to Steve it's right after Clint has downloaded it. He wanders into the common room not long after Tony leaves and finds his teammate and friend pacing the room, staring at his phone.

"Um?" Steve says.

Clint whirls around, pointing the camera at Steve's head. "Ha! You've got a Pidgey on your head, Cap." 

Steve pats his head reflexively and frowns. "What-?"

"It's a new game they just released. Pokémon Go. It's pretty cool."

Steve nods, like that means something to him and spins on his heel. "I'll be drawing if anyone needs me." Clint says something back in the affirmative.

When Steve gets to his room, instead of drawing, he pulls out his phone. He knows the rest of the team still thinks he's overwhelmed by modern technology, and to be fair, Steve went from black-and-white televisions to supercomputers the size of his hand. There was bound to be an adjustment period. But it's been years since Steve came out of the ice, and it's a little insulting that the others still wonder if texting bothers him or if he knows what the App Store is. 

So Steve searches Pokémon Go, downloads, and settles in to learn.

After that, particularly after Natasha gets back from Europe, the team badgers him about the game often. They tell him to give it a try. That they'll help him along. That it's not really that hard.

Steve digs up his 'Aw, shucks' face from somewhere and tells the team that he's intimidated. All those little pokémon are just too modern for him. They give up eventually, even if Natasha figures it out and forces him to go running around Manhattan with her once or twice, chasing a rare pokémon or two.

But, for the rest of the team, Steve plays dumb, even as he levels up and starts to take over gyms. He builds his pokémon on other gyms first, leaving the tower alone, until he feels he's ready. Then, while he's supposedly showering and getting ready for a function, Steve destroys Tony's forces, piece by piece. Steve takes the tower gym for blue, and Natasha and Clint are quick to help out. Then he calmly pulls on his suit and meets the team in the lobby.

"Who the hell is this guy? Who does he think he is?" Steve can hear Tony complaining from fifty feet away. "Taking over my tower with a name like AvengeMyAss."

"All I know is he's good, and he's Team Mystic, too." Clint sounds appreciative.

Steve finally gets within speaking range. "Is everything alright? Is the tower under attack?"

Tony says 'yes' at the same time as everyone else says 'no'. They head out to the cars, and Steve tries to ignore Natasha watching him speculatively. 

 

It all comes to a head in a debrief session. Fury is saying something about property damage while the rest of the team plays paper football or doodles, when Tony sits up straight in his seat and shouts, "Holy shit, it's a Mew!"

Everyone goes nuts. There's a mad dash to get phones out and lots of shouting as the team desperately tries and fails to catch the Legendary. Fury looks like he has no idea what's going on and his supposedly unflappable good eye, Coulson, is trying as furiously as the rest to catch the Ultra-Rare pokémon. One by one, the Mew disappears from all of their screens. One by one, they all fail to catch it.

There are possibly a few tears and definitely a lot of swears, and into the slowly descending calm, Steve stands up and says, evenly, "Take that, asshole."

The team watches with something bordering awe as Captain America slams his phone onto the table, a caught Mew displayed on the screen.

Clint drops his phone in shock and Tony goes to collapse back in his seat and instead falls on his ass. Even Natasha twitches an eyebrow in surprise. Steve smirks at all of them.

"You guys didn't really think the game was too much for me."

"Truly, Captain, you are a magnificent warrior." Thor says into the shocked silence, newly broken phone in hand. They all might have sat like that for a while, stunned with Steve smug as all hell, except Fury slams his hand on the table hard enough that Bruce goes a little green around the edges.

"Get the fuck. Out of. My. Sight."

They scram. Even for a Mew, no one wants to get on the ex-but-only-technically SHIELD Director's bad side. 

 

Later, when Steve confesses to being AvengeMyAss, battle lines are drawn and more players called upon to settle the dispute. Years in the future, it will come to be known as Captain America's Civil War. The Pokémon Go world will never be the same.


End file.
